Report on BBC's anti-Israel bias will stay secret

The BBC has won its legal battle to block the publication of a report into alleged bias in its reporting of Middle East affairs.

A ruling obtained under freedom of information legislation had obliged the corporation to make the internal audit public.

But that decision was overturned by the High Court.

The BBC's decision to spend an estimated £200,000 of licence feepayers' money to keep the Balen Report secret has been widely condemned.

The corporation was accused of hypocrisy because it has regularly used freedom of information legislation to break news stories.

The attempt to force the BBC to publish the report - compiled in 2004 by its editorial adviser Malcolm Balen - was led by lawyer Steven Sugar, who represented himself in court.

The ruling will disappoint the Jewish community which would have wanted to know whether the 20,000-word document had found any evidence of anti-Israeli bias in news programming.

Mr Justice Davis, sitting at the High Court in London, said last August's decision by the Information Tribunal for the report to be published was flawed.

He said: "I conclude that the BBC's submissions are well founded. The tribunal had no jurisdiction to entertain any appeal."

The judge said the document was exempt from inspection under freedom of information laws because it was held by the BBC "for the purposes of journalism, art or literature".

After the verdict, Mr Sugar said: "It is a technical win by the BBC which has the result desired by the BBC of weighting the Freedom of Information Act in its favour.

"Perhaps the BBC Trust under its new chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, will take a different view to the BBC management and conclude that it is in the public interest for Mr Balen's report to

be published."

Mr Sugar called on ministers to review the journalistic exemption.

"The exception was drafted in general terms which has allowed its use to prevent the public gaining access to much material which I am sure the Government intended should be publicly available," he said.

"I hope Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, who is a supporter of freedom of information, will consider clarifying the journalism exception. This would not require primary legislation."

Philip Davies, Tory MP for Shipley and a member of the Culture, Media and Sport select committee, said: "This seems to be outrageous. If the BBC are embarrassed about what they are doing they should not be doing it.

"If they are not embarrassed they should release the information. It is a sad day when they have spent so much money to keep it secret -people think this is a colossal waste of money."

The BBC has faced repeated claims that its reporting of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been skewed towards the Palestinian cause.

Its critics cite the revelation from Middle East correspondent Barbara Plett that she cried when Yasser Arafat was close to death in 2004.

A BBC spokesman said: "The BBC has always maintained that the Balen Report is held for purposes of journalism and, therefore, outside the scope of the Freedom of Information Act.

"We believe that programme makers must have the space to be able to freely discuss and reflect on editorial issues in support of independent journalism.

"It was always intended as an internal review of programme content, to inform future output. It was never intended for publication.

"The BBC's action in this case had nothing to do with the fact that the Balen Report was about the Middle East - the same approach would have been taken whatever area of news output was covered.